


Lift me up, give me a start (Cause I've been flying with some broken arms)

by naivesilver



Series: Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week 2020 [4]
Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week - Day 4: Lost/Found, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, ICPSS enabled, Nightmares, Past Violence, Recovery, Spoilers For Shuu's Route, Survivor Guilt, Wish Fulfillment Fic, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naivesilver/pseuds/naivesilver
Summary: Leone waits three weeks before going in search of Yuuya.Or, Yuuya's story from Shuu's route takes a different path.
Relationships: One | Leone J.B. & Sakazaki Yuuya
Series: Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963837
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11
Collections: Hatoful Boyfriend Ship Week





	Lift me up, give me a start (Cause I've been flying with some broken arms)

Leone waits three weeks before going in search of Yuuya.

The first two because it's standard procedure, when it comes to missing agents. The third because, well. It's _Sakazaki_ they're talking about. The boy has a penchant for dropping off the grid for days on end only to return holding a precious piece of intel, grinning mischievously in the face of Leone's fury like a child who's successfully snuck into his mother's pantry.

Still, in none of those instances was he involved with someone as notoriously adept at disposing of bodies as Shuu Iwamine. Which is why Leone has to grit his teeth and remind himself to keep his focus as he watches the weeks go by, waiting for Sakazaki to give any indication of his whereabouts.

When the twenty-first day rolls in with no sign of life, though, Leone gets up and arranges for Doctor Iwamine to leave town for a few days.

It's risky, cooking up an excuse like this in such a short time. Iwamine could sniff out the lie in a heartbeat, and then their whole investigation would be in danger, but Leone finds that he doesn't care. He needs the freedom to search the school, and he can't have it unless the doctor is out of the equation.

The boy can't be anywhere _but_ inside the school grounds, because it's the only place where he might have been caught unawares. Besides, resourceful as the doctor may be, he’s still physically weaker than most: trying to get Yuuya out (unconscious or dead or cut into pieces – but Leone can’t think of that. He can’t. He _won’t_ ) without being noticed would be a struggle even for him.

And a visit to what must be hiding below St Pigeonation has been long overdue, after all.

The search begins once Leone’s sure that Iwamine is well on his way out of town.

Finding the entrance to the secret lab is no easy task, but there’s something propelling Leone forward, prompting him to look twice in every nook and cranny even once he’s sure the passage is in another room.

It’s not- there’s nothing professional about it, no matter how much he tries to lie to himself. If catching the doctor red-handed were his true intention, he’d have stayed put instead of risking to jeopardize the whole mission. His superiors won’t be pleased once they hear what he’s done – and they will, it’s unavoidable, they have ears everywhere. The only reason Leone hasn’t told them yet is that they would have tried to stop him.

Still. He’s a handler, and a junior agent went missing under his care. As duty goes, he’s got his hands tied.

If duty has little to do with what he’s doing, then that’s none of their business.

Finally, the mirror in one of the storage rooms yields under his hands, revealing the door behind it. The lab is an endless maze of cold, dark corridors, but there must be some sort of motion sensor installed, because lights turn on as he passes under them. They flicker and dim down, but not as they would after a decade of disuse, and the floor bears traces of someone moving through recently, so at least Leone knows his idea wasn’t too far-fetched.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone but him down there at present time, but he draws his gun anyway, and checks every room before entering. Iwamine has an uncanny ability for sidling in when one least expects him to, silent as a shadow, and it would be the cruellest kind of joke if Leone were to be taken by surprise mid-rescue mission.

The first room is empty. So’s the second, and the third, and every single one after that.

By the time he reaches the last batch of doors, he’s deep enough into the lab that there’s a high chance he might get lost on his way back, but he doesn’t give up. He’s gone too far to stop and go back to square one with his hands empty. He’s got to find something, even if it’s just a body to bury – Sakazaki deserves that much, at least.

He opens a door at random, and instantly a terrible stench reaches his nose. Not a rotting smell as much as the penetrating one of disinfectant, carrying along the coppery taste of blood.

It’s almost strong enough to make Leone’s eyes tear up. It’s only when he blinks, clearing up his vision, that he sees the figure on the cot in the middle of the room.

He dashes to its side, heart pounding in his throat. For a split second he thinks that maybe it’s too late, maybe he didn’t get there on time – Sakazaki’s laying still as a statue, and his skin is pale in the harsh neon light, save for the dark circles under his eyes.

But – no. The boy’s chest rises and falls, albeit only slightly, and his fingers twitch every now and then, the only movement not hindered by the way he’s tied up. Both wrists and calves are strapped to the table, and while there’s no particular machine connected to his body, there _is_ an IV needle up his arm, the liquid making a drip-drip-dripping noise that threatens to drive Leone mad.

The man exhales, trying to regain the calm and composure he’s known for, and presses two fingers on the side of Sakazaki’s neck to check he’s not seeing things that aren’t there. Sure enough, he can feel the pulse underneath, faint, yes, but undeniably there.

“Sakazaki” he calls out. When that doesn’t work he raises his voice, shaking the boy slightly: “Sakazaki. _Yuuya_. Wake up, damn it.”

Suddenly, Sakazaki jerks awake, his eyes flying open with a franticness that leaves no doubt to who he’s expecting to find standing by his side. He blinks once, twice, then frowns, clearly confused. In this light he looks nothing like St Pigeonation’s infamous flirting machine: if anything, with his hair matted by sweat and dirt, with no glasses on and a glaze to his eyes that suggests Iwamine might have dosed him with something before leaving, he looks perilously young, a scared little boy that doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. “Leone?”

“The one and only” Leone replies mechanically, trying to mask the relief that floods him as he goes to untie the straps. He’s a seasoned Dove Party agent, after all – he can’t let something like this make him emotional. Not now.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’m getting you out of here.”

The trip back upstairs is a slow and tedious one.

Sakazaki tries valiantly to stand up on his feet, but it’s clear to the both of them that his legs will refuse to cooperate for a while still. There’s no time to wait, though, so Leone has to drag him bodily the whole way, and doesn’t pick him up only because the boy doesn’t seem to have lost much weight despite his recent experience.

“I didn’t think you’d come look for me” Sakazaki mutters, a bit of the usual flippancy in his voice as his cracked lips stretch in a thin smile. “Thought you wouldn’t risk the mission for that.”

“Don’t be an idiot” Leone replies, scoffing, but the words nag at him nevertheless, poking and prodding at the back of his brain.

There was a chance of it happening, after all, wasn’t there? Had he been more dutiful – had he gone through the proper channels instead of plunging right into action, he might have never found Yuuya on time. Another Leone, one more focused on their goal of catching the local Hawk Party envoy, might have mourned, before ultimately choosing to mark Yuuya off as a casualty of working on the field.

It’s hard to admit how close he came to be that Leone, even to himself.

He half-expects Iwamine to be there when they get out, leaning on his cane and smirking satisfyingly at the fact they both fell in one of his traps. Leone’s almost eager to see him, to be honest, because he’s pretty sure nothing would stop him from putting a bullet through the doctor’s head right now.

But there’s nothing beside wet grass and the chilly night air waiting for them outside St Pigeonation, so Leone loads Sakazaki onto the car he’s left outside waiting and drives off before he can think twice about it.

The safe choice, the _logical_ choice, would be to get the boy to a hospital. A cursory search found him mostly unharmed, but regardless, they should check for any lasting damage. But there’s no way to know whether the Hawk Party might have someone in there as well, or if Iwamine might have warned his associates to keep an eye out for a runaway high school student corresponding to Sakasaki’s description.

Likewise, hiding him in Leone’s own rooms inside the school would be just as risky, so the only choice left is to head for the closest safe house among the ones their organization has scattered around the area. Afterwards, they’ll see.

Sakazaki dozes off again on the way there, his head resting against the passenger window. Leone would shake him awake, but it seems a more natural sort of slumber than the previous one, and if he manages to sleep off some of the drugs the doctor must have given him, all the better.

It means that Leone’s got nobody to talk to, though. Not that he’d expected any sort of deep conversation – the boy’s in no fit state to answer any question, beside those on the lines of _can you walk_ or _did he inject anything contagious in you_. But being alone with his thoughts is a worse fate than having to listen to Sakazaki’s ramblings, lucid or not that they might be.

They come across a red light, a few blocks from the house. Leone stops diligently, not wanting to attract any attention, and lights himself a cigar, rolling down the window to let the smoke out. He watches as Yuuya shifts in his sleep, shivering a bit at the sudden influx of cold air even though he’s wrapped Leone’s own coat around himself to ward off the chill, a makeshift blanket over the thin undershirt and boxers Iwamine left on him.

Stupid kid. Stupid, reckless kid, running headlong into trouble without so much as a _by your leave_ – he’s going to suffer the consequences of this for a long time yet, even if the Hawks don’t get to him first. Leone will come to regret saving him, he just knows, if only because his bosses will run him ragged trying to patch up the hole they left in their carefully planned ambush.

But perhaps that’s what he deserves. Sakazaki made his bed and should lie right down on it, true enough, should learn to think before he acts once and for all, but perhaps none of this would have happened if he’d been better prepared for what was to come. If they’d given the mission to someone more experienced, more adept at working on the field.

Leone was the one to train him. He should have known the boy wasn’t ready, that he was too immature, with too little survival instinct for his own good. He should have made sure Sakazaki could put his training to use, instead of assuring the people higher up that he could do his job.

He’s scolding himself nearly as soon as the thought has crossed his brain. It’s not the kind of mindset one should have in his line of work - he’s done what he was asked to, plain and simple. And Yuuya is not the angry thirteen-year-old they once dropped in his hands anymore. He’s a man grown, or near enough that makes no difference, considering all that he’s been through. He ought to be able to take care of himself.

And yet…

The traffic light turns green. Leone throws the cigar out the window, even though there’s quite a bit of it left, and speeds off into the night, gritting his teeth against the taste of bile that rises in his throat.

The kid’s still sleeping by the time they reach the house, and doesn’t stir even when Leone does, this time, pick him up and carry him inside.

The sun’s almost rising when Yuuya wakes up.

Leone, for his part, has spent the last few hours checking the supplies stashed around the house and cooking up a believable report to send “upstairs”, only stopping to call St Pigeonation to warn them he would take the day off. They seemed to believe his story about a supposed family emergency (which is, as it seems more likely by the minute, only about 70% of a lie), and he’s been a model employee for the past few years, cover job or not. They’ve got no reason to be suspicious.

He’s sitting on a chair next to the bed, his head tipped back as he smokes, when he catches something moving in the corner of his eye. He turns to see Sakazaki trying to sit upright, his arms trembling as he pushes himself up.

“Easy now.” Leone moves to crouch at his side, sneaking an arm behind his back to support him. “Welcome back, kid.”

“Where…where are we?” The boy asks, voice rough as if it were scratching his throat raw.

Leone passes him the glass of water he’d left on the bedside table for this very occasion, keeping a hold of it so that Sakazaki doesn’t try to drink it all at once instead of taking small gulps. “Somewhere safe. For now, at least.”

Yuuya looks like he’s trying to solve a particularly complex puzzle. Leone can almost see the little cogs and wheels turning in his head. “The doctor?”

“Won’t realize you’re gone for a while yet. You’re lucky he’s full of himself enough to believe someone would invite him to a scientific convention nobody’s heard of at the very last minute.”

This gets him no response, but it’s to be expected – the energy for cheeky answers won’t come back for a few days at least. Instead Sakazaki stares at the bottom of his glass as though he could see the future in it, and Leone slowly slides off to sit at the foot of the bed, once he’s sure the kid won’t fall to the side if left to his own devices.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Sakazaki smiles, a small, wavering grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I wasn’t sure you’d really gotten me out. I thought it was an hallucination. I got a few of those along the way, with some of the stuff Iwamine gave me.”

“Do you know what it was?” Leone motions for him to raise his arms beginning to pull off the boy’s sweat-soaked and yellowing shirt. Luckily, Sakazaki complies quickly enough, and the man scans his skin for any sign of recent injuries.

He doesn’t find much. The straps left raw, angry red marks where they chafed around the wrists and legs, and there are purple bruises up the arms from needles and the like, along with a handful yellowing ones that mottle one side of the body. Aside from that, though, and from some open sores that were no doubt caused by being forced to lie still in the same position for too long, his first impression on the absence of serious damage seems proven correct.

(There’s a scratch on the neck, though, a scab just below the chin, almost fully healed. For a second, Leone wonders what Iwamine might have thought to accomplish with that, and the rage he feels rolling in his gut is nearly strong enough to make him stand up and go in search of the doctor himself.)

Yuuya lets himself be poked and prodded at without a single complaint, but he shakes his head after a moment, as if remembering he’s been asked a question. “No. Nothing too strong, though. He didn’t want to leave any traces.”

Leone’s fingers still, hovering an inch or so above the right arm. “Why?”

Sakazaki’s got his back to him. He doesn’t turn around to reply, instead fidgeting with the overgrown strands of hair falling on his shoulders, greasy and nowhere close to the artistically tousled style he usually prefers. Therefore, Leone doesn’t get to see his face, and can only hear his voice, flat and toneless as he speaks. “He didn’t want to damage my body too much. He got some blood from me, every now and then, but nothing else. He said he had a plan that required my body in its entirety.”

“What kind of plan?”

Seconds tick by with no answer. Leone waits as long as he can, then he takes the boy’s chin and forces him to turn, to look him in the eyes. “Sakazaki.”

“He didn’t tell me.” Yuuya smiles again, and it’s the smile he usually gives the poor heartbroken sods at the school, no more genuine than the first one. “He likes monologuing, I’ll tell you that, but it’s not like he recounted everything he wanted to do to me. Probably thought I wasn’t bright enough to understand his great master plan.”

Leone doesn’t believe that for a single minute, but there’s something in Yuuya’s eyes that prompts him to let go, to set aside the rest of his questions.

He doesn’t forget them, though. He stores them in the back of his mind as he moves to get the boy more water, and waits for the right moment to ask.

It takes a few days for him to get his answer.

Leone’s superiors aren’t happy at all about the new developments, as predicted, but they seem to come to the conclusion that removing him from the investigation as well and replace him with another agent would make Iwamine too suspicious. They even agree to send down someone to help with keeping Sakazaki safe, but it’s clear from the very beginning that in their eyes, the boy remains chiefly Leone’s responsibility.

It sounds like a punishment. It probably is, from their point of view, but Leone can’t find it in himself to be angry. He knows, deep down, that he wouldn’t rest easily if he weren’t able to check on Yuuya with his own eyes.

Still, it’s far from a relaxing prospect. He can’t just wave off his duties at the school, but neither can he leave his charge alone for too long, so he spends a frankly obscene amount of time he could use to sleep to go from the school to the safehouse and back, especially since he has to take long, winding roads to make sure nobody’s been following him.

Tending to Sakazaki is not an easy task, either. Convincing him that he needed to lay low and take time to recover was hard enough, but it’s the daily, monotonous stress of actually making sure he’s healing that threatens to erode at Leone’s nerves. It’s not unlike taking care of a child, with the sole difference that a child would be less reluctant to admit that his legs are likely to give out if he tries to take a shower on his own.

It's not – Leone’s not _angry_ , per se. He doesn’t _do_ angry, usually, not when he can accomplish a lot more by keeping his cool. And any amount of leftover fury he redirects towards Iwamine, to the point that he has to dig his nails deep into whatever cleaning supplies he’s holding to avoid bursting when he crosses path with the doctor at school.

He asks himself, at times, if he’d have such strong reactions had literally any other agent fallen victim to the Hawks. He’d like to say yes, that he would, that anyone sacrificing themselves during their fight for a better world is equally important, but he doesn’t need to voice it aloud to know it is a lie.

He cares about the boy. He cannot deny it, not even to himself. Getting attached is probably the worst thing one could do in a job as dangerous as theirs, and in the past four years or so he’s gone and fallen right into it, letting himself get close to this blue-haired fool with more issues than sense.

It hurt, to see the state Iwamine reduced him to. But it hurts more to realize just how deep a grave Leone’s dug for himself, and how impossible it would be to get out of it

Therefore, he’s pretty sure he’s got a right to feel some degree of annoyance, the night he steps inside the house only to find Sakazaki sitting on the bathroom floor, holding onto the toilet as though it were a lifeboat.

Leone takes a long, steadying breath as not to do anything rash, and then crouches down beside him. “What’s gotten into you?” He asks, when the boy pauses amid all the retching and heaving.

Yuuya offers him a wan smile, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ah, mon amie, you’re here. It seems I must have eaten something too rich. Good food doesn’t agree with recluse life, apparently.”

Leone scoffs, but doesn’t deign him with an answer. They both know it’s bullshit – it’s the stress of recovering, most likely, or the withdrawal from the endless cycle of drugs the doctor must have put him through.

Besides, for all that he never thought his job would entail having to hold a sick teenager’s hair back, he can feel for himself that this is not the right time for lectures. Sakazaki’s skin is flushed and too warm under his touch, and his gaze seems slightly out of focus, lost somewhere far away.

He doesn’t press the issue, then, and helps Sakazaki up once he’s done throwing up, supporting him as he staggers back to the bedroom.

“How’re things at school?” The boy asks once he’s tucked back into bed, his voice slightly muffled by the way he’s pressing his face into the pillow, groaning as though the lights were hurting him.

Leone turns them off before replying, and the bedroom falls into darkness, punctuated only by the streetlights filtering through the window. “As usual. Doctor Iwamine hasn’t done anything yet, but we know he’s on alert. Hopefully he’ll make a rash move and we’ll be able to catch some of his associates along with him.”

Yuuya makes a non-committal noise. “Hiyoko? Did you warn her to stay out of the infirmary?”

He has, mostly because Sakazaki has been asking him to since day one. Leone doesn’t know if there was something between the two of them, but the hunter-gatherer girl seems important to him, budding high-school romance or not.

A pity they will likely never see each other again. If there’s anyone who might be able to talk some sense into Yuuya (or at least bodily drag him away from peril, given the girl’s attitude), it’s Tosaka.

“She’s resigned from her place in the health committee. She asked after you, but it was easier to convince her of the danger, since you’d already disappeared.”

“Keep an eye on her, alright?” It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it sounds like Sakazaki is smiling. “Knowing her, she will storm the infirmary axe in hand to avenge me.”

He’s silent after that, and Leone thinks he must have fallen asleep. He’s about to check that the boy is not at risk of suffocating in case he’s sick again and then leave, considering there’s not much to do for him here – he’s brought some stuff, some books, anything that might distract the young agent long enough to keep him from barging out of the house unsupervised, but it’s still a meagre list of options – when there’s another string of noises from the bed, a low murmur, too faint to be understandable.

“What is it, now?” He asks, rubbing at his face. God, he’s exhausted. If this is how he handles low-profile missions now, he’ll be relegated to office duties in no time at all.

“I said, I’m glad you got me out before Christmastime” Sakazaki repeats, which is not helpful in the slightest.

“What do you mean?” He’s not in the mood for riddles, especially since he predicts this one will make little sense, seeing the state the boy’s in.

“Hiyoko didn’t deserve that, is all I’m saying.” There’s a pause, and then: “And I would-I would have made a poor meal, I think.”

“Sakazaki, I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about.” But the choice of words sends something digging in Leone’s chest, ice cold and needling, even though he can’t make out what it is.

A poor _meal_?

“He said I’d have a hard time fitting in the oven.” Once again, the faint light makes it hard to see Yuuya’s face, but his breath is coming out ragged, somewhat frantic. The words slur together, as if he were in a hurry to get rid of them. “That he’d need to cut off some pieces. But he believed that Hiyoko would appreciate a Christmas roast. _She’ll like having you with her for such a long tim_ e, he said. He thought it would be very funny, I think. He wouldn’t stop smiling.”

He dissolves into rambling shortly after, his monologue punctuated with French words that are hard to decipher, but Leone is not listening anymore. He sinks down onto the bed, because he’s not sure his knees won’t buckle, and tries to sort out what he’s just heard, his mind filled with piercing white noise.

It’s ridiculous. It sounds like a horror story, and a cheap one at that. He could almost believe that Sakazaki’s feverish brain might have cobbled it up on its own. Iwamine is a cold-hearted bastard, but surely not to this point.

Except- except it does make a macabre sort of sense. Why else would the doctor have kept Yuuya in such a good shape? He could have tortured the boy to an inch of his life, starving him with the bare minimum. Instead Sakazaki was well-fed and more or less whole, if weak and understandably shaken up by the whole ordeal. And they’d been following a lead about missing students being turned into stationery and school canteen food even before the situation escalated.

Leone can picture it quite vividly, Shuu Iwamine holding a knife to Yuuya’s throat, telling him he’ll be turned into food for the girl he’s infatuated with.

He plays and replays it in his head, staring into the darkness, long after Sakazaki’s breath has slowed out into snoring.

(Here’s the thing: Leone has never been one to make impulsive decisions.

That marks him as an outsider, even among his colleagues. The Dove Party might be on the side of peace, but it’s filled to the brim with hot-headed idiots, too trigger happy and eager to spill some blood to be of any use outside the occasional shoot-out.

He’d feared Sakazaki would turn out like that, at first, seeing how easily he’d taken to handling his weapons, even so young as thirteen.

But the boy’s too good at heart to become one of those people, and Leone – Leone appreciates it. He doesn’t enjoy mindless fighting. He sets plans in motion, and then makes himself some tea as he watches them unfold. He’s got no shortage of back-up solutions for when things go south, and only resorts to blunt violence at the very last, when there’s no other option.

Everyone knows this. His chief-in-command knows, Sakazaki knows, even his enemies probably know, and would try to take advantage of it if they had an inkling of what the elusive Leone JB looks like and what he’s currently posturing as. He himself knows, because a field agent needs to know his strengths and weaknesses and work around them when the situation calls for it.

And all of this means that there would be quite a lot of people as surprised as he is, if they knew how strongly he wishes he could wring Iwamine’s neck with his bare hands, after Yuuya makes his confession.)

He takes to spending the nights at the safehouse, after that.

Sakazaki doesn’t seem to remember what he said after the fever breaks, and the new development clearly puzzles him. He cracks a joke or two on the fact that Leone must be feeling alone at night – he’s nearly back to his old self, too, since he sounds more annoying by the day. But he seems convinced when he hears it’s a security matter, and it’s evident he’s glad to have company.

It’s immediately clear why. The boy seems to be plagued with nightmares, loud, lively ones that make him kick away his blankets and call for people that aren’t there. He seems half convinced to still be trapped in the lab, too, when he wakes up, and he shoots up like he’s been slapped in the face, gasping for breath and searching for some clue that might tell him where he is.

That something tends to be Leone, apparently, because Sakazaki always appears to settle once he finds the man laying in the makeshift cot he’s made for himself.

Leone wakes up every time Yuuya does. It’s tiresome, but it can’t be helped – even if he didn’t want to keep an eye on his junior agent, the house is too cramped for him to stay anywhere else. And he hardly ever shows that he’s awake, either, because he’s not sure how well the boy would react to being seen so vulnerable.

Moreover, he doesn’t know what he could do to help. Sometimes Yuuya calls out his brother’s name, or his mother’s, and there’s nothing Leone can do in _those_ instances – he’s had his suspicions about what might have gone down with the Le Bel heir for a long time now, but he’s not going to step into that particular viper’s nest until the boy comes clear about it on his own.

As for the other nightmares, the ones of most recent cause…there’s not a broad range of option for him on that front either.

He barely even knows what he's doing as it is, besides lending a hand in making sure the boy remains grounded and doesn't lose his mind. He keeps watch over Sakazaki, sure, but why he's doing it still puzzles him.

He tells himself there's a practical reason behind it. If Yuuya unconsciously reveals some details about his imprisonment - the ones he won't say willingly, too ashamed or too spiteful or whatever meaning he gives to it - then Leone has to be there to hear, to bear witness and report to the Doves so they know more about Iwamine's future plans.

But the idea repulses him, and besides, he knows it to be a lie at this point. He hasn't said a word about what he already knows, apart from warning other agents to dig deeper into missing student searches: he's not about to start now, unless it's a matter of life and death.

Still. He lays down every night thinking this'll be the time he snaps, that he'll just walk up to Sakazaki and ask him what it is that he hasn't mentioned in these past weeks, and every night he remains where he is, listening to the boy lull himself back to sleep.

And then, something shifts.

Leone doesn't know what the tipping point is. The umpteenth night he finds himself waking up to muffled shouts, he's fully prepared to lay on his side, eyes half open, and wait for the storm to pass.

But for once, Yuuya doesn't settle as easily as he usually does. He glances briefly at Leone's corner, as if to reassure himself of something, and then seems to curl on himself, hugging his legs to his chest, face against his knees, sitting up against the wall as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.

He's shaking like a leaf, and after a moment, Leone realizes that he's crying.

That's...Calling it disconcerting would be an euphemism. Leone is fully aware than most of what Sakazaki does is a ruse, a careless, cheeky facade he puts up like a mask - but it's one the kid is committed to, even in the privacy of the safehouse. To see him crumple up like this is nothing short of a shock, and that comes from a man who's seen all of his mood swings.

Leone debates not moving. He could do as he's been doing for the past nights, for the past weeks, remain silent, remain distant, give the boy some space and watch him pretend nothing has happened when morning comes.

Suddenly, the mere thought seems unbearable.

He gets up as quietly as he can and moves across the room, coming to stand right next to the bed. "Sakazaki" he mutters, hoping not to startle the boy.

Nevertheless, Yuuya flinches, and then looks up with some apprehension. The light coming in from outside makes strange shadows dance on his face as he rubs at his face, trying to compose himself. "Leone? Sorry. I didn't want to wake you up."

"Don't worry about it. What's wrong?"

"It's nothing." Yuuya's lips stretch into a smile, even though his voice cracks mid-sentence. "Please don't tell anyone about this, they think I'm a lousy agent as it is. If this keeps up they'll send me on a mission to Iceland like Agent Murasaki. It's far, Iceland. I don't wanna end up like that."

"Hell, Sakazaki, do you ever stop joking?" Leone groans, then sits down on the bed, a few inches from where Yuuya is doing the same.

He fully expects the boy to scoot away, to turn his back and raise up his walls again. Instead, it's Yuuya's smile that wavers and then falls, leaving a somewhat stubborn look behind.

"Well, it's not a joke, is it?" He says, looking somewhere above Leone's shoulder. "We both know I'm lucky enough to be here. If it'd been up to some in our party I'd still be rotting down there. That's what happens when you fail your mission."

"You didn't fail anything, what in the world are you-"

"Didn't I? I thought the plan was for me to catch Iwamine in the act. Instead he caught me, and now I'm shut here in time-out, and you're stuck playing babysitter. Not exactly a bright and massive result, right?"

"Don't turn my words against me, kid" Leone warns. "You needed time to recover, and I'm still your handler. Your well-being is my responsibility."

"For now, sure. But what happens when up there they decide it's been long enough? You're _Leone JB_ \- you'll get away with a slap on the wrist. But I'll be stuck at the bottom of the pile for a long time, if they don't just decide to throw me out for the Hawks. They always like having a scapegoat."

Leone has never heard Yuuya sounding so cruel, so on the verge of breaking. It leaves him at loss of words, or it would, if he hadn't been trained to deal with desperate people for year. "You know that's not true. You've been through enough- you're not thinking straight."

The boy laughs. It's short and bitter, more like a sob than anything. "I've been through enough? I was bloody lucky you were there to get me out. The others fared much worse."

"The others?"

"There was this boy, you know" Yuuya says, but it doesn't feel like he's answering the question. It sounds more like he's narrating something only he can see, a movie playing on the forefront of his mind. "He wasn't there long, but he was loud. I could hear him all the time. He was calling Iwamine some weird name, and me as well - apostle of something or the other, I don't know. He went on for a while, but at the end he didn't have names for anyone. He just wanted his mother."

"Sakazaki-"

He's crying again, and doesn't even move to wipe at his face as he keeps speaking. “I tried to get him out, too. I ought to have been able to untie myself- you know I could have, you taught me how to. But I was so out of it that I couldn’t get my fingers to move right, and then by the time I came back to myself Iwamine had already gotten rid of him and I- I couldn’-“

Leone is moving before he’s aware of what he’s doing. He’s not sure what compels him, but it’s like a switch’s been flipped in his brain, a sign that turned on only to tell him _alright, here’s what you need to do_ – so the next thing he knows, he’s wrapped an arm around Yuuya’s body and another around his neck and is pulling the boy towards himself.

Yuuya freezes in his grasp, stunned. He doesn’t even struggle – he just stays where he is, unmoving, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But-“

“Hush now, kid” Leone murmurs. He’s not used for this kind of things – hell, he probably isn’t _made_ for this kind of thing. But he’s pretty sure this is what they both need, and if- if what it takes to sort the night out is a hug, then a hug it shall be. “It’s okay. You did okay.”

Slowly, haltingly, Yuuya relaxes. He burrows his face in the crook of Leone’s neck, shaking with sobs, and wraps his arms around the older agent’s torso. His fingers dig painfully in Leone’s back, clutching at his shirt, and that’s going to be one ruined piece of clothing, between the tears and the stretching, but Leone finds that _that_ ’s something he couldn’t care less about.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, him rubbing Yuuya’s back and repeating the same things over and over again under his breath – that he’s done good, that he hasn’t failed, that it’s not his fault, it’s not it’s not it’s not, and it doesn’t matter if it’s only slightly true – and the boy clinging to him like a grapevine. It could be minutes, or hours, but at some point the crying seems to slow down, and Yuuya’s breathing start evening out.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, _mon ami_ ” he mutters, prompting Leone to roll his eyes. “You must be getting soft.”

“Yeah, yeah, mock me all you want, kid” Leone scoffs. “I’ll start regretting saving you if you go on like this.”

But as threats go, this one rings empty. At this point he can’t deny he would have run off to save Yuuya even if he’d been explicitly forbidden to, even if he’d been assigned to another case. It’s not something their colleagues would be happy to hear, but it’s only the two of them in that room, and nobody needs to know what’s passed between these walls.

Yuuya laughs quietly, to make clear what he thinks of that. And then, after a moment: “Leone?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

It’s almost too low to hear, but close as they are Leone has no issue catching it. It’s terribly earnest, and so weird coming from Yuuya’s mouth, and had it happened anywhere else it would have been followed by some atrocious joke to dissipate its meaning.

Not here, though. Not now.

“You’re welcome, kid” Leone whispers, and doesn’t let go. “You’re welcome.”

They don’t speak of it again.

Yuuya seems almost embarrassed by his outburst, and moves around it awkwardly, hesitantly, as if aware it was a one-time event. Leone finds it somewhat amusing, but he acts unfazed by the boy’s antics. They’re on shaky ground as it is; there’s no need to make it worse.

He’s got a plan, though.

It’s not so much of a plan – rather half of it, an inkling, an afterthought. It’s cobbled up together haphazardly, and it’ll probably grow worse as he goes, but it’s not enough for him to stop. He needs to do it on his own, and only show it to the higher floors of their agency at the very end, when it will look the sole possible solution.

Yuuya doesn’t need to know either, not before Leone is certain that it’s going to work. The last thing the boy needs is for his hopes to be crushed.

That doesn’t stop him from trying to snoop in, every time he catches Leone doing some work at the safehouse.

“What’s the next step?” He asks one day, when he sees Leone typing in his phone deep into the night.

And Leone stashes away his notes, hides his plans of catching Iwamine when he least expect – faster than his bosses would, catching him when he least expects it, making sure Yuuya’s involvement wasn’t in vain, _everything it takes_ to make it work – and grumbles, as though the boy were only the mild annoyance that he is on a daily basis.

“Mind your business, Sakazaki. I’m trying to keep you out of Iceland.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was chatting with some people on Discord and they made me realize just how long Shuu supposedly kept Yuuya captive between his disappearance and Christmas, so long that his imprisonment crossed with Anghel's. I know there's a high chance Shuu just killed him and stored him in a freezer, but I couldn't help but wonder why the fuck Leone wouldn't try and save him since the two of them obviously cared for each other a lot.   
> (Also why didn't Hiyoko just roundhouse kick Shuu in the face towards the end??? My girl fights buffalos!!! This weak ass partridge is no challenge for her!!!)  
> Thank you for reading my ramblings and the oh-so-many-words I spent on Leone JB, the very best cockatiel in existence. Hopefully I'll be able to post the last three days of the ship week as well.


End file.
